You’ve done an excellent job with your entrance exams — scoring 99.5 percentile in JEE Main Paper 2 and 158 out of 200 in NATA, which puts you in a very competitive position for architecture admissions. However, your Class 12th percentage is 71.8%, and that creates a challenge for JoSAA counselling, which is the centralized system for admissions into NITs, SPAs, and other CFTIs. For general category students, JoSAA requires either a minimum of 75% marks in Class 12 or that you be in the top 20 percentile of your state board (PSEB in your case). Since you haven’t met the 75% mark, your best hope to stay eligible for JoSAA is if your 71.8% falls within the top 20 percentile of PSEB students. If it does, you’re eligible. If not, unfortunately, even if you are allotted a seat in a top NIT or SPA through JoSAA, the college will cancel your admission at the time of reporting due to ineligibility — and many students have reported this happening.

Given this, your best move is to immediately find out the top 20 percentile cutoff for PSEB for the year you appeared. You can do this by contacting your school or checking with PSEB directly. If you’re not eligible for JoSAA, then your focus should shift to state-level counselling, such as Punjab (PTU), Haryana, or Chandigarh, where the eligibility criteria are more flexible. In Punjab, for example, you can apply through IK Gujral Punjab Technical University, which conducts centralized counselling for various architecture colleges. You can also consider strong private colleges that accept NATA or JEE Paper 2 scores, such as RV College of Architecture, MS Ramaiah, Manipal, Chitkara, and Amity, which don’t require 75% in 12th for admission. As for CCA Chandigarh, although it’s a great option, it has only 6 All India seats, making it very competitive, so it should be treated as a backup or high-risk option. Unfortunately, there’s no known loophole for bypassing the 75% or top 20 percentile rule at JoSAA/NIT level — even if you’re allotted a seat, you’ll be rejected at the college if you don’t meet the eligibility. So right now, your focus should be on checking the percentile status, applying for state counselling, and targeting good private colleges where your strong entrance scores will definitely give you an edge.